Female Scholars’ Experiences of Social Media Harassment

George Veletsianos, Professor, Canada Research Chair, Royal Roads University
Jaigris Hodson, Assistant Professor, Royal Roads University

We would like to invite you to participate in our study: Female Scholars’ Experiences of Social Media Harassment.

The purpose of this research study is to better understand the experiences of female scholars with social media harassment. We also seek to better understand the types of social media harassment received and the impacts of such harassment.

Individuals who have received harassment on social media and identify as female scholars are invited to participate. These individuals include academics affiliated with educational institutions, independent scholars, and doctoral students.

If you agree to participate in this study, you will be asked to:

participate in an individual audio-recorded interview about your experiences scheduled at a time of your choosing

answer six short demographic questions about yourself

Your participation to this study is completely voluntary. You are entirely free to decline participation, to withdraw from the interview at any time, and to refuse to answer any questions. If you choose to withdraw, all of your contributed data will be destroyed.

We will ask some sensitive questions in our interview. For example, we will ask you to discuss with us how social media harassment impacted you personally and professionally. There is a risk that you will experience levels of emotional distress during the interview. To mitigate this, you may refuse to answer any questions of your choosing and/or can withdraw your participation at any time.

The interview is expected to take about 45 minutes. The interview will be recorded for transcription and the recording will be destroyed once transcribed. The transcribed interviews will be securely kept as encrypted digital files for 3 years, and after 3 years, they will be destroyed.

The information that you share in this study will be confidential. To ensure that you remain anonymous, a fictitious name will be used in transcribed interviews and all publications. No identifiable personal information will be collected.

Once complete, we expect that the results of the study will be presented at Canadian and international academic conferences, and will also be communicated via academic journals, online social media, news articles, and YouTube videos.

This study has received funding from SSHRC. It has received ethics clearance through the Royal Roads University Research Ethics Board. If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research subject or about research related injury, please contact the Royal Roads Research Ethics Office at (250) 391-2600, ext. 4425, or ethicalreview@royalroads.ca.

By clicking on the “I agree” button below, you agree to participate in the project, and you will be taken to a page to answer the demographic questionnaire. If you do not agree to participate in the project, click on the “Exit and clear survey” button at the bottom right of this page.

Choose one of the following answers

I agree to participate in this study

This survey is currently not active. You will not be able to save your responses.